The good is that the larvae (except one) are all doing well. There has not been much development but they are still growing slowly in size. They are recognizing that a person approaching their tank means food is coming and they get quite excited and start zipping around. I thinks that behavior is very cute and shows how smart they are at this early age but it sure makes filming more difficult.
Blog follower Ed has asked if the reason that the golden/blonde larva hangs out in the upper water column may be due to aggression from the other larvae. I have watched for aggression and have seen some bickering over space between the venusta larvae but I have not seen any directed towards the blonde larva. She has been more benthic the last couple of days but when the camera came out she went up and so is not part of todays video.
Here is the video taken today (day 83) of the P. venusta larvae.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaowRdePN0o&feature=youtu.be
Sadly, one of the larvae died today. She was one on the smaller larvae from the 20 gallon tank, and was thin and unbalanced this morning. Here is her photo.
I continue to collect spawns from Faith and Fabio's tank and they are often large spawns. Unfortunately they are still not fertile. I think what is happening is that Fabio does his spawning dance and Faith is somewhat interested. By 10pm Fabio goes to bed and Faith releases her eggs sometime between midnight and 1am. I'm finding this frustrating!! And I bet Fabio is as well!!
Karen, what about extending the photoperiod or perhaps adding some nocturnal lighting to Faith and Fabio's tank....keep that old man up past 9 PM so he's still there and ready when she is?! ;)
ReplyDeleteHey Matt,
ReplyDeleteFabio rolled his eyes when I read your comment to him!
(Sorry I missed this comment earlier. I didn't know I had to look for comments- I'm such a dim wit with this computer stuff…)
So anyway, there is some nocturnal lighting in the fish garage. I have my algae cultures in the corner with 24/7 lighting. There is a light blue curtain to keep the algae light subdued in the rest of the room but it does glow all night.
My thinking is that Faith is a bit of a tease and Fabio has been working for it and is now getting tired of the game. There was such strong chemistry between Faith and Jaws the joculator during their short introduction that I'm still toying with the idea of putting those two together and buying new mates for Fabio and Connie the female joc.). I do have enough funds left from the indigogo campaign to buy the new fish and I just bought a large tank from crag's list. The problem is fitting the new tank in the garage!
I'm also still hopeful that Fabio and Faith will produce fertile eggs so I haven't taken the next step.